A richly described but sometimes-unconvincing tale of a piano prodigy.
As a cicada brood emerges, dramatic events swirl around a musically gifted girl’s life in this debut historical novel.
Growing up in Providence, Georgia, narrator Analeise Newell and Etta Mae Johnston are childhood friends. Analeise, 11, recalls that their mothers met “packing pickles into jars at the Mayfield Pickle Company, my Mama at the white table, and Etta Mae’s at the colored.” Ever since Etta Mae’s mother died, she’s been raised by her grandmother Miss Wessie, who looks after the two girls when Grace, Analeise’s mother, is at work. As for Claxton, Analeise’s father, he’s usually drunk. It’s the summer of 1956, 13 years since the last cicada brood hatched, and now the insects are returning, littering their shells everywhere. Ominous currents begin swirling around Analeise, a natural piano virtuoso. She tastes music, feels burning pains in her legs, and detects a meanness inside her. She becomes jealous of Etta Mae’s singing success and deals with Claxton’s sudden death. Analeise also develops a strange fascination for the wealthy, charismatic Mayfields and their haughty, underhanded daughter, Marlissa. Although warned away by Miss Wessie, Analeise becomes drawn into the Mayfields’ web of hidden truths and ruthless manipulations until—as the town is mobbed by cicadas—a maelstrom climax reveals long-kept secrets. In his novel, Gwaltney assembles some classic ingredients of the Southern gothic tradition, with Analeise’s world being haunted by death, madness, the past, and the supernatural. This can become over the top even for the genre, particularly in the extended and histrionic denouement, but the eerie tone is well orchestrated for those who appreciate a sinister frisson. Still, Analeise’s final certainty of personal, deep-down badness seems overstated compared to her actual actions. Similarly, the book reaches sometimes for the portentous, as with Analeise’s (rare but normal) synesthesia.
A richly described but sometimes-unconvincing tale of a piano prodigy.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Moonshine Cove Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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